Hot Pants
Hot Pants was a heavyweight robot which competed exclusively in Series 6 of Robot Wars. One of three heavyweights to be entered by Team Panda, it had limited success, being eliminated in the first round after becoming immobilised due to a dislodged power key. Design Hot Pants was essentially an upscaled version of Team Panda's antweight Pants, a box-wedge shaped robot armed with a double-headed pickaxe. The axe was pneumatically-powered and had a silver bauble decorated to resemble a disco ball, which received compliments from Philippa Forrester during interviews, and it had a pair of pants painted on the back. Hot Pants had a top speed of 15mph, but suffered from a variety of issues, including low reliability, limited damage output from its axe and exposed wheels. The Team Hot Pants was entered by Team Panda, captained by Pete Collier, who was joined by his teammate Steve Bracewell. Pete Collier was the lead builder and driver of Hot Pants, and had previous experience competing in Series 2 with the heavyweight robot Panda Monium, and Robot Wars Extreme with the antweight robot Pants. Pete Collier and Steve Bracewell went into their Series 6 Heat wearing large wigs and very outlandish and colourful shirts, along with afro wigs. Qualification Hot Pants was a revised version of Team Panda's earlier heavyweight Big Pants, which had previously attempted to qualify for Series 4 and 5. At the Series 4 Qualifiers, Big Pants fought an early version of Edge Hog, initially performing well by axing the side of Edge Hog and leaving it with mobility issues. However, Big Pants's axe could not retract following this blow, as a result of a faulty weld which caused its pneumatic cylinder to pierce the robot's baseplate. After this, both competitors were pushed into the pit by the House Robots, and the battle concluded. Big Pants's performance impressed a few key Robot Wars personnel, including Chris Reynolds and Bill Hobbins, with its axe earning particular praise from the former. Hobbins later expressed concerns about Big Pants's reliability, resulting in it failing to qualify for Series 4 along with Edge Hog, but encouraged Team Panda to repair the robot and strengthen its axe mechanism in preparation for Series 5. Nevertheless, Team Panda later attempted to enter Series 4 with Big Pants's predecessor, More Panda Monium; however, it too would not qualify. Big Pants received further modifications and upgrades ahead of its attempted entry for Series 5, including a revised axe with a spiked head made from 6mm steel plate.http://robotwars101.org/heavys/bigpants/diary/2001/june.html However, it would fail to qualify for that series as well. By contrast, Hot Pants successfully entered Series 6 through attending the qualifiers. Although it is unknown which opponents it faced during its qualifier, it was reportedly known to have put on an entertaining performance which lead to it being chosen to compete by the producers. Robot History Series 6 In Heat H of the Sixth Wars, Hot Pants was drawn against Ming 3, The Hassocks Hog and Spam in its first round melee. The battle started fairly quickly with Spam charging around the arena. Hot Pants spun away from a charge from Ming 3 and then managed to axe one of The Hassocks Hog's fluffy ears, but its axe caused little to no damage at all, and also became stuck in the down position. Hot Pants then seemed to break down and pushed around the arena by Spam. Ming 3 then crushed into the insides of Hot Pants, doing some damage, and pulled it over to the flame pit. Hot Pants was then counted out by Refbot, eliminating it from the competition, before being pushed into the pit by House Robot Sgt. Bash. Hot Pants was immediately followed by Spam, although Spam would still progress to the next round alongside Ming 3. After the battle, it was found that Hot Pants' power key had fallen out, thus immobilising the robot. Results |} Wins/Losses *Wins: 0 *Losses: 1 Series Record BigPantsConstruction.gif|Big Pants during construction HotPantsPits.jpg|Hot Pants in the pits Outside Robot Wars Prior to its Series 6 entry, Hot Pants took part in various live events under its original incarnation as Big Pants, notably the 2001 Robots@War event. There, it fought at least one battle against future Semi-Finalist M2; despite suffering from drive issues and having its axe head bent, Big Pants performed well, landing numerous blows on M2 and surviving for the full duration.http://robotwars101.org/heavys/bigpants/diary/2001/june1.html In 2002, Hot Pants also attended the Sussex Robot Rumble in Worthing, which took place before its entry into Series 6. Experiences from this event allowed Team Panda to make further modifications to the robot prior to its televised appearance.http://robotwars101.org/heavys/bigpants/diary/2002/preaugust.html After Series 6, Hot Pants fought at another live event in Worthing in December 2002, where it was destroyed by Terrorhurtz and 13 Black.https://web.archive.org/web/20051023120209/http://robotwars101.org/heavys/bigpants/diary/ This prompted the team to retire the robot and replace it with Thunderpants. Trivia *Coincidentally, the other robot to lose in Hot Pants' only fight, The Hassocks Hog, was also from West Sussex and also had pants painted on the machine. *Hot Pants was the first heavyweight robot from Team Panda to appear on the televised show since the Second Wars, but the first robot from Team Panda to qualify without coming in as a reserve, which Panda Monium did. **Jonathan Pearce mistakenly claimed Team Panda's previous televised appearance as took place in the Third Wars. References External Links *Hot Pants/Big Pants page on the official Team Panda website Category:UK Series competitors Category:Robots from West Sussex Category:Robots with Spiked Axes/Picks Category:Robots which debuted in Series 6 Category:Robots which lost their only battle Category:Robots which only fought in Series 6